Thank you for your prompt response and for sharing your insights on this matter. I would like to provide an example use case where a teacher assigns different tasks to each student and requires them to publish their answers (reports) on a Discourse forum. In this scenario, 1) the teacher needs to be able to see each student’s answer, and 2) some students may want to keep their answers private while others seek comments, feedback, and interaction. Additionally, 3) teachers may provide comments that are not suitable for public viewing.
This need for control over posts can also apply to other situations, such as employees writing monthly reports or patients writing recovery logs. To abstract, it’s about meeting user requests for control rather than moderators planning everything in advance. This is especially important for small communities focused on producing high-quality content.
While Discourse is an excellent platform for large communities with thousands of users, it’s also a great option for building smaller, refined communities that encourage deeper thinking and in-depth discussion. Users should have more control over their well-written posts.
Regarding the development of a plugin for this feature, I appreciate your concern about balancing performance and user experience. Instead of immediately creating a complicated plugin, a better approach would be to maximize existing features. For example, by creating a category with multiple subcategories, each corresponding to an assignment, and having students submit their work to the appropriate subcategory. This allows for control over each topic, and creators can choose to make their topics public or visible to specific user groups. Taking such baby steps can help reduce workload and make it easier to validate the effectiveness of the feature.
In short, giving users more control over their posts is essential for creating niche communities with high-quality content and engagement. This will not only nurture these communities but also expand the potential uses for Discourse. It’s a new way to explore what Discourse can do.
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss this with you. 